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Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Fables: Animal Farm Volume 2 by Bill Willingham

Genre: Fantasy / Adventure

Year Published: 2003

Year Read: 2012

Series: Fables #2

Publisher: Vertigo Comics

Animal Farm…

In comic form!

Brief Introduction:

After reading the first volume in Bill Willingham’s popular “Fables”
series, I was a bit interested in reading the second volume of this series,
hoping to find out more about the Adversary who took the Fables’ land from
them. But in “Fables: Animal Farm,” we are actually introduced to a revolution
on the Animal Farm where Fable characters who are not human or cannot maintain
a human form reside. “Fables: Animal Farm” is a great follow
up to the first volume that will have you wanting to find out what happens
next!

What is the story?

Ever since the Fables were
forced out of their homeland by an evil being called the Adversary, the Fables
who were non-humans were forced to live on the Farm so that way they would not
be under the suspicious eyes of the mundane world. Unfortunately, a revolution seems to take
place on the farm as the non-human fables decided to take back their land from
the Adversary and then try to rule both Fabletown in New York and the Farm
itself and it is up to Snow White to stop this crazy revolution before it is
too late!

What I loved about this comic:

Bill Willingham’s writing!: If you have seen the title of this volume
entitled “Fables: Animal Farm,” then
you will definitely know that this story is pretty much similar to George Orwell’s classic novel, “Animal Farm.” To be honest, I never would have thought that Bill Willingham would include a novel
that is a satire on the Russian Revolution into his “Fables” series which mainly includes fairy tale and folktale
characters, but I will admit that I was really impressed with the direction he
took this story! I loved the way that Bill Willingham included famous animal
characters from fairy tales and folktales such as Shere Khan from “The Jungle Book,” Brer Rabbit,
Goldilocks and the Three Bears and the Three Little Pigs and wove them into a
sort of satirical tale that is based on the animals of the farm forming a
revolution against the people who rule over the Fables. It was also interesting seeing how Goldilocks
and the Three Little Pigs were leading the revolution, which put an insane spin
on our favorite fairy tale characters. Bill Willingham did a great job at
portraying the relationship between Rose Red and Snow White and it was quite
shocking seeing how Rose Red treated Snow White although Snow White tried to
make amends on their relationship and once it is revealed about why Rose Red
hated Snow White so much, you cannot help but feel a little sorry for her
throughout the two volumes of the “Fables”
series.

The artwork:
Mark
Buckingham’s artwork is truly brilliant to look at as the characters look
truly realistic and I love the facial expressions on the characters, especially
whenever Snow White is upset, you can actually see the tears and the frightened
expressions on her face which made me truly feel for her throughout this
book. I also loved Daniel Vozzo’s coloring on the artwork as the artwork has dark
coloring that truly reflects the dark atmosphere of this story.

What made me feel uncomfortable about this book:

Now, I did have a couple of
issues with this volume that mainly revolves around the plot of this
volume. Now, I understand that this
story is about the animals and the non-human characters having a revolution on
the Farm because they felt they were being treated unfairly compared to the
fables who live in the city, but I felt that this story just came out of
nowhere since it was never mentioned in the first volume about there being
problems on the Farm. Also, I felt that
there was not enough focus on Snow White and Rose Red’s relationship since the
bulk of the volume was focused on the non-human fables fighting against the
fables from the city and I wanted to see more from Snow White and Rose Red’s
relationship throughout this ordeal.
Also, the ending felt like it lost some steam after the first half of
the volume was pretty exciting with the revolution going on and then suddenly,
the story starts to slow down towards the end.

~A bit of a warning~

This volume is definitely
more violent than the first volume as there is a lot of gore and violence
regarding the revolution. Anyone who is
not a fan of violence in graphic novels might want to skim over the violent
scenes in this volume.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, despite my gripes with this volume and the fact that this volume
and the volume before it has not answered my question (WHO IS THE
ADVERSARY?),“Fables: Animal Farm” was a great read and I am still excited to see
what will become of the fables after the ordeal in this volume.

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Hello! I'm Ronyell and anyone who wants to be my friend is free to become friends with me! Also, I love followers on my blog, since I have so many great things to talk about the various books I read from time to time. I love to read, exercise, sleep and surf on the internet, with reading being my most favorite activity.
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